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Chris Briggs

Software engineer whose passionate about IoT, Dev-Ops, Security, UWP & Xamarin.

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When I attempted to use SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) in a recent project. I discovered some serious pain points when attempting to use SSRS within an Web-API driven AngularJS SPA :

  • It was difficult to integrate the report Viewer component with angular
  • The Report viewer felt clunky and out of place
  • The dependence on the Report Viewer limited the portability of WebAPI
  • The version of SSRS I worked with was not mobile device friendly

How Do You Solve a Problem Like integrating SSRS, Web-API and AngularJS?

Upon sitting down and looking at the problem, I boiled it all down to a simple question:

What if I separated the report generated by SSRS form the report viewer component?

If the API could return the report in a neutral file format for example pdf, I would be able to bypass most of the current pain I was feeling using SSRS.

In the following series of articles, I will outline how to make SQL Server Reporting Services play nicely with WebAPI and AngularJS.

Step One : Convert the RDL To RDLC

By converting the report from an RDL to an RDLC, we will perform the processing for the report within the Web-API. I found during my exploration that this is the Happy path for integrating SSRS and Web-API.

  1. Create a copy of the report RDL
  2. Rename the report file extension from RDL to RLDC
  3. Open in notepad++

The following steps are not necessary but will reduce the amount of tedious work required.

  1. Install the add-on xpatherizernpp for notpad https://code.google.com/p/xpatherizernpp/
  2. Open Xpath window and perform a search for //DataSets

Where’s the next step? See the next blog post!

Feel free to tweet me a comments, feedback or questions to @ChrisBriggsy.